


(irresistible force) paradox

by copperiisulfate



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 03:03:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4043368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperiisulfate/pseuds/copperiisulfate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He thinks of her as Suoh's memento even before he sees her awakened in all her fiery splendor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(irresistible force) paradox

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Missing Kings

  
The thing is that they had taken turns.

Once, it was Suoh Mikoto who had been the unstoppable force and Reisi, the immovable object, feet planted square and standing his ground even if it left him half-certain there was going to be a hole blown clean through him, shaped like a crater, burned around the edges, leaving him a circle of ash.

And then, somewhere along the way, they had swapped spots.

Even in death--no, even  _after-_ -it feels as if he is unstoppable, still exerting, still leaving his mark on the world, the blue sword of Damocles being only one such manifestation of his erosion.

The thing is that no, Suoh Mikoto was not a man meant for friendship but then, friendship and kingship were wholly, mutually exclusive things, so, at the end of the day, there was no love lost.

(There may have been something else lost instead but there is no mourning what never had a name. There is no time for mourning regardless, for grief, for slicing and staring at cross-sections of one’s heart. Sometimes, they have to cut corners. Occupational hazard and all.)

The thing is that this is the cost and there is always, always,  _always_ a cost, and if one tires to be greedy and take all and give nothing back, sooner or later, like a promise of a hellhound, it catches up.

In some ways, perhaps Suoh Mikoto knew this. Perhaps, he was greedy in his own way but he always, always knew the cost and he never bothered to cheat his way out. 

When death caught up, he welcomed it with open arms.

*

Reisi, in spite of himself and every ounce of his better judgment finds that he still picks it apart in his head, does not know why he bothers or what it would change. Nothing really. And yet, still, he turns and turns it over like an hourglass, the sand spilling out, time unspooling before him, his sword fraying overhead.

_Was it like this for Habari?_

this is something he sometimes wonders.  _Was it always like this? Would it always be? For all the kings before and all the kings after?_

The thing is that this was always what was going to happen and that coincidences do not-- _cannot_ \--exist. Kusuhara Takeru died for a reason and Suoh Mikoto killed and died for a reason and Munakata Reisi too has killed and will die for a reason even if none of it may be apparent until much, much later.

He doesn’t allow himself the luxury to think of all the lives lost so young, not beyond the briefest of moments.

And then: she appears.

*

He thinks of her as Suoh's memento even before he sees her awakened in all her fiery splendor. He can help neither the warmth nor the dread at the sight of her. He does try to put the cycle of blood out of his mind but it only works for a short moment.

He hopes -- and it is a wonder he still allows himself this hope of hopes -- that she will not also be Suoh’s legacy, not in the way that he fears and, somewhere in the back of his head and behind the smoke in his eyes, Suoh must have also feared.

Maybe, he thinks darkly, a little selfishly even, he should ask her for the honour when his own time comes, let her both put him to rest and avenge her guardian. Alternatively, clean up the mess he left behind, namely Reisi himself, in his current state.

But then, he does not want to grant her the burden of killing a king.

Of killing, at all.

It’s a fine, fine line because she is his equal now, isn’t she? And he should treat her the way he would any other king in her position.

Even so, her ascension is, for so many reasons, beyond what he can easily rationalize.

And it isn’t just that, yes, another life, so young--and somehow they are always so  _perilously young--_ but this one was complicated, by debt, by duty, by memory, by--

He’d wondered if she knew of the legacy of their colours--if she would be the one to flip it on its head.

*

 _I will not thank you_ , she had told him, a steady fire in her eyes.

There were embers in the air that day and now, there is the scent of change in it, like rain after a forest fire, the smell of the new uncovered earth.

He knows that she too will be an unstoppable force and an immovable object. Already, she is both reminiscent of the one before her, and yet, wholly different, a creature entirely of her own making, wings unfurling like a phoenix.

Reisi finds himself looking forward to it--

( _Kushina Anna_ , he had said, first to Fushimi, then his entire clan, then finally, to himself, let the name echo back.  _the red king._ )

\--distantly imagines that her predecessor, wherever he is now, with his grin  _certainly still_ lit like a match, must be too.

 

**Author's Note:**

> izumisays and i were talking (weeping?) on tumblr about reisi referring to anna as mikoto's memento in the movie and then, this sort of happened.


End file.
